Analisys of unstressed final-close vowels /e/ and /o/ in external vocalic sandhi in data of the NURC-Recife Project

ABSTRACT This study exams the behavior of close-mid vowels /e/ and /o/ in unstressed final position in three cases of external vocalic sandhi: degemination, elision and diphthongization. The material used for the analysis comes from one well-stablished corpus of Brazilian Portuguese: the NURC-Recife corpus. The results show that these close-mid vowels under examination are always pronounced as high vowels in unstressed final position. Besides, it is observed that when the context permits the occurrence of triggers elision or diphthongization, the close-mid vowels involved in these processes are preferably converted into glides (in 54,2% of the data), producing, with the following vowel, a rising diphthong. We also argue the possibility of juncture in the environment of final unstressed vowels followed by stressed vowel. However, this can only be observed when the stress and the rhythm patterns of the utterance are taken into consideration.